Don't forget! Today is the last day to enter my fabric giveaway for a chance to win 3 yards of this 1980s pinstriped, neon-figured wonder!
To enter, leave a comment on this post by midnight PST tonight. Good luck, my fellow junkies!
As I wrote on Sunday, I'm on a mission to get control of my sewing room and bring my stash down to a manageable size. Giving away some fabric to blog readers is an obvious way to get closer to that goal, right?
Here's the problem I've been struggling with: what exactly should I give away? What fabric qualifies to be featured in such a glorious manner?
Perhaps you think it should be something useful. The kind of fabric any seamstress would be happy to get. Or maybe you think it should be a thing of beauty: a breakthaking length of cotton or silk that you can hardly bear to cut into.
To which I say: have you been reading this blog?
Drum roll! Prepare to meet your destiny: three yards of 60" wide vintage 1980s fabric. Words don't really do it justice, so here it is:
"Wait," you may be thinking. "Those look like people, yet...their shoulders are so enormously large! And what's with the teeny heads with sharp points?"
Yes, it demands a closer look. Behold:
Yes! Those are 80s dudes and Valley girls with new wave haircuts and "Stop Making Sense" shoulder pads! They're dancing! And skateboarding! All in neon 80s colors!
To enter, simply leave a comment telling me what you'd make with this treasure. Would you zig on the zagged line and embroider giant chains on it? Would you offend 50s fashion lovers by making a winged wiggle dress? Or would you embrace the 1980s in all their misguided glory and make this Dihann Carrol ruffled capri pantsuit?
Enter by midnight PST by Wednesday, April 27. I'll pick the winner by random number. Again, be sure to tell me what outlandish dream project you'd make with it (and if you'd like, email me a pattern photo.) Don't worry -- I won't hold you to your promise to make hot pants or giant jackets, but those boppin' New Wavers just might...
Well hello, readers. It's been a while, huh?
I've been going through a reassessment of sorts lately. It started with my disaster of a sewing area. Denise of The Blue Gardenia asked me months ago to be a part of her lovely "Sewing Spaces" series, and I tried to work up the nerve to let it all hang out and show my sewing space as it truly is. I couldn't muster the courage, because that room is a PIT OF DESPAIR:
(And this, dear readers, is AFTER a little picking up.)
Is it a wonder that I hardly get any sewing done at all? When I do carve out some time to sew, my process is something along the lines of 1) make room on cutting table and around sewing machine, 2) spend half an hour looking for essential implement, 3) reach end of sewing time. Repeat process again in two weeks.
For a couple of years I was under the delusion that I could sew my way to freedom -- just bust through that stash, get it to a manageable size, and then organize. Ha! A backasswards approach if ever there was one. See, I am a sucker for the deal -- the fabric store mystery bundle, the eBay lot, the thrift store score. And so I've accumulated quite a bit of fabric that I never deliberately picked out. Considering that in a good YEAR I sew four pieces, I have more fabric than I'll sew in a lifetime. I have WAY too many patterns. Sure, I'll always have a collection, but I literally have hundreds I'm not interested in. The sewing room purge has begun (slowly), with the ultimate aim being to have a space I actually enjoy and use.
The website Discardia has really influenced a lot of my thinking about this. There are a lot of "enjoy life more with less" websites out there, but Discardia was the first I had seen that acknowledged that an avalanche of information and ideas can be just as hard to deal with as a house full of stuff. That in addition to focusing on keeping what you use/getting rid of what you don't, you should evaluate all that "stuff" in terms of what you want to be doing.
I'm an information and internet junkie. And just like Dinah of Discardia, I can go from just reading about someone's experience -- whether it be in sewing, travel, writing or something else -- to assuming that I need to do it, too. Look, here's a blogger draping a pattern and drafting a skirt block -- why am i just using a plain old pattern? I must make my own bias tape! Take up knitting! Make a bra from scratch! And, dammit, I should write a book about it while I'm at it!
That's what makes some of the fabric so hard to let go of: the idea each piece represents. How many times have I looked at a length of fabric and imagined the garment I would make -- and the person I would be in it? But for me it's hit the point of too much. I need to narrow my choices and get rid of the stuff that I'm not going to sew. Life's too short for bad fabric!
But my loss is your gain -- yes, there's a fabric giveaway in the works! Details later this week!
Raise your hand if you have WAY too much fabric.
Good, I'm not alone. I'm always telling myself not to buy more fabric, but then something like THIS comes along:
It's a three-yard piece of nice cotton that cost me a whopping 80 cents at a thrift store. I mean, it would have been criminal to pass it up, right?
Anyway, years of great steals have resulted in me having plenty of fabric -- and plenty, unfortunately, that is not the best color for me, the wrong weight, etc. You must be in the same boat, right?
Here's my proposition: a stash round robin. No, it's not actually REDUCING your overall stash, but it will give you the illusion that you have! Plus, you'll get exciting new fabrics that just might inspire you.
How would it work? Simple:Whattaya say -- any interest? Leave a comment if so, and I'd love to hear any other suggestions! (International friends, postage costs are going to limit this to the U.S., but leave a message anyway -- perhaps other people from your part of the world are game for it!)
It's official: I've been spending too much time over at Male Pattern Boldness. When I saw the above photo at a post on Sew Retro, I immediately assumed it was Cathy, not Dita von Teese.
Looking for links to immerse yourself in this weekend? Here are a few:
I've been tortured by four yards of green gingham recently.
Oh, it's pretty enough fabric. The green is my favorite shade. (I say my favorite color is teal, but this Granny Smith green is everywhere in my life: my kitchen cabinets, my car, several vintage dresses...) And it has the prettiest ribbon stripe running down it. See?
I bought it on eBay several years ago. And here in L.A., now that the weather's gotten warmer -- stop laughing, rest of the world, we do have seasons here, they're just subtle -- my head is spinning with dress pattern and fabric combinations. But green gingham? What had I been thinking when I clicked "bid"?
I love wearing bright colors in the summer. But -- I'm 41. And it wasn't "mutton dressing as lamb" I was worried about as much as "grown woman dressed as a four-year-old." I'd gotten to the point where I decided I'd have to give the fabric away. Then I remembered that I had Simplicity 5349 in my pattern collection and thought that View 2 with the white collar might work well:
Still I doubted it. Could I wear a gingham plaid? Maybe the time had passed.
Then I had The Green Gingham Dream.
In it I saw a friend of mine wearing a green gingham dress. It was one of those weird dream situations where for some reason I couldn't talk to her directly, but in my dream I exclaimed "Staci has shown me that green gingham CAN work for spring! I have to tell her!"
Funnily enough, a few days later I actually identified the dress my friend was wearing in the dream -- it's View 3 from this vintage 60s pattern, Simplicity 8611:
I'm "meh" about the pattern. Making it in my green gingham stripe seems like it would result in the stuff of nightmares -- but maybe my subconscious knows something I don't! At any rate, I'm pretty sure there's a pattern out there for me and my green gingham...and isn't the search half the fun?
What patterns and fabrics have appeared in your dreams? I won't ask "if" -- I'm pretty sure if you're reading this blog, sewing makes a regular appearance in your dream world...
Oh, and my friend? She's got a fantastic sense of style that's all her own, but I wouldn't say green gingham is a part of it. I sent her an email declaring her the Green Gingham Oracle, and I think she's still too stunned to respond.
LIBERTY OF LONDON IS OFFERING RAY HARRYHAUSEN FABRIC!!
I know! It's amazing, isn't it?! What are you going to make? I'm thinking a prim '60s shirtdress. Maybe just a skirt, though, since Liberty's on the pricey side. It'll have to have pleats, however, just so I can have the fun of pretending that dueling skeletons are hiding in them. In fact, maybe I could do a hidden bit of embroidery! Look at this fabulous fabric! So dark and mysterious...you know some fantastic creature is hiding in the depths of that jungle:
You haven't said anything. It's because you spit up your coffee in excitement, right? Or because you clicked away to order fabric of your own?
Or...is it that I'm one of only about six people in the world who would be excited about this? I don't know how often the fandoms of sewing and horror/sci fi movies collide.
I see a hand in the back. "Who's Ray Harryhausen?" you ask.
ONLY ONE OF THE BEST MOVIE SPECIAL EFFECTS CREATORS EVER!! He did JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS! He did CLASH OF THE TITANS and THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD! He studied at the knee of Willis H. O'Brien, who did the original KING KONG!
Deep breath. I've calmed my movie geek side down. Harryhausen is an amazing artist who created special effects in the 1950s with stop motion photography. That meant that he created models (generally out of clay) and then shot them frame by frame, moving them just a tiny bit each time, to make an action sequence that flowed. Keep in mind that 24 frames go into just one second of film and you'll get a sense of the kind of painstaking attention to detail he had to employ.
Here's an example of his work, if you're interested. It's his famous "Skeleton Fight" from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. (Warning: turn down the volume if you don't want 50s movie music blasting from your computer, though I'm sure none of you are reading this at work.) Laugh at the 1950s acting and the short gladiator costumes if you want, but remember -- this is the work of one man and his two hands. No computers. He did it all at 24 frames per second. Every limb of every skeleton -- and often there are several onscreen at once -- had to be moved just a millimeter for each frame. He'd often work all day to get half a second of footage.
Suddenly I don't feel like I should whine so much when I have to re-do a seam. Enjoy! (If you're in a hurry, the skeleton stuff begins around 1:45).
